posted
I hate mice. Despise them, really. I loath mice with an intensity that can't really be described. When they're in my house, that is. Otherwise I think they're kinda cute.
But, my house is creeping up on 100 years old. There are holes and gaps in it, no matter how many I plug. Every-other fall or so, there's that scratching again... mice.
This year I was sitting at my computer desk when I heard a thump from the direction of the hall closet, and turned around to see a good-sized mouse dragging something across the floor. I, of course, screamed.
The mouse shot under the gap in the closet door. When I went to investigate I found my Dagoba eclipse 87% chocolate bar on the floor... high-grade chocolate that had been stashed in the closet for late-night chocolate cravings. That bloody mouse had pull/pushed it off the shelf and was dragging it home.
So I bought traps, and I've never had much luck with traps. The instructions always recommend using peanut butter for bait, and I've only ever caught one mouse that way. I usually end up plugging gaps with steel wool and poisoning the things... but this mouse had shown me its weakness.
I filled the bait cups with pea... well, cashew butter. I don't have any peanut butter. And pressed a chocolate chip on top of each one. How could it resist?
Now I just have to hope my mice are not chocolate snobs. I had to use ghirardelli chocolate chips, and milk chocolate instead of dark.. it's just not the same.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
((ElJay)) You know what else works? Try Froot Loops. It was my secret weapon in college during my frat's "Great Mouse Crusade". I caught 12 of the little buggers in less than a week!
Posts: 236 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
And Reeces Peanut Butter Mousse sounds pretty good.
I just hate it that I scream every time. I mean, how flippin' girly. And then I do what I need to do, of course, but it always startles me to see one and I scream.
posted
I admit, I let the mice roam free in my last apartment. We had to safe-guard all our food on the shelves, but I wasn't willing to kill mice. I never felt we were in danger of disease, though you could argue that that was naive of me. They were cute, scuffling around.
We did catch one, once. It was rummaging in a plastic bag on a shelf, so I picked up the bag. Kept the mouse in a bin for about a week, feeding it pistachios and water. Let it loose elsewhere.
Course, when we moved out I discovered mouse poop _all over_ the edges behind the furniture. If I had realized how bad it had become, I might have acted differently.
The landlord tried poison boxes, but we still had a consistently large mouse population in our apartment. In fact, it might have grown due to heavy trap-usage in the neighboring apartment.
Posts: 1261 | Registered: Apr 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Froot loops! Now why didn't I think of that? We used to use them as rewards for the rats in a behavior research lab.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I had mice in the house I first lived in in Texas, and someone convinced me to use the glue traps because they were more humane. It was HORRIBLE!!!!!! One mouse was caught only halfway, and his lower half wasn't int he trap. He's scooting pathetically across the tile floor, I'm standing there horrified and my roommate is yelling at me to do something. We shut it in the closet and convinced that same someone to come and do something about it. Holy crap, that was awful.
Good luck with the peanut butter chocolate thing. I have ants right now, and I'm trying to picture what would happen if I had to trap mice with gooey yumminess on one hand and try to keep everything clean away from the ants with the other. I left an apple core in the trash can by my computer last night, and this morning my desk and keyboard was covered with ants.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Snap traps break their cute little necks quickly and cleanly. With glue traps they either chew body parts off trying to escape, starve to death, or you have to deal with them. How in the world did someone think that's more humane? I knew a someone once who flipped glue traps over, so the mice died of brain embolisms... slow and painful. Cruel, cruel cruel.
I use this handy little covered mouse trap... you don't have to see the buggers or come anywhere near touching them. Yes, I am a wuss. I'll handle snakes, I can deal with spiders, wasps are no problem. Rodents are a problem.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I agree, although I'm kind of squicky about bugs too. They're little, and I've seen Star Trek II.
The glue traps were just terrible. The idea was that you can get the mouse free with vegetable oil, but it was an awful experience in the meantime. The whole scooting and mournful squeaking gave me nightmares for a couple nights after.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I once got a mouse in a bathtub and had it in a peanut can, I wanted to keep him, but my mom told me no. I took the mouse down to the school and let it go.
Posts: 747 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ugh, those glue traps are really sick, aren't they? The more they struggle the more... I don't want to even describe it. It's not something one wants to see at 7 a.m. before heading to class.
I must say though, my days of killing mice are over. I once trapped a cute baby mouse by luring it into an empty water jug filled with froot loops. I was so happy I found a benevolent mouse trap! I carried the jug outside and dumped the little guy onto the sidewalk. I guess I thought it would scamper happily away, but I didn't realize that semi-damp mice in 0° weather really just want to do one thing: immediately freeze to death. I've felt guilty ever since.
Posts: 236 | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
About four years ago I was a few minutes late getting to church one afternoon when the afterschool kids club was meeting. There had been a mouse problem at the church, and someone had put out some glue traps. And one of them had caught a mouse. When I got there, the kids had lifted the trap onto the table and were gathered around feeding the mouse oreos.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I live in a tropical country. We don't have mice - at least, not in our house - but imagine what we do have.
Geckos. I scream like a little girl every time I see them. And that's pretty much every day. Problem is, how do you kill them in a way that doesn't cause you more problems? I know of no traps, and they're poisonous to human skin. So, I don't know.
Roaches. Cockroaches. Luckily, though, fat cat Oberon chases them and plays with them until they die of exhaustion. Good going, Obie! But then he leaves them there - they're no more fun any more - for the . . .
Ants. Who, just this mornng, were carrying a cockroach body from the kitchen, I presume, through the living room, and towards the front door. It took about a hundred ants to do the job, but they're good about teamwork. They go anywhere and everything - they steal the catfood. They gather around drops of anything sweet that landed on the floor. They invade our sugar container which has since been relocated into the fridge because that was the only true ant-free zone we have. They invade anything and everything. And they're everywhere. Big ones, medium ones, little ones, tiny ones, and even tinier than those ones. Flying ones. All sorts. And I hate them all.
Spiders. But we let them live. Because they kill the other bugs.
Mosquitoes. We have a bug killer. It kills about a hundred or so mossies a week. I love it.
Um, yeah. Those are the highlights. Welcome to hell, er, I mean, my life. (Can I use that h-e-double toothpicks word here without getting banned?)
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote: And offering to arm-wrestle you for the box.
Oh, that's great. I haven't laughed that hard all day...Wait, it's 1am...Umm...Haven't laughed that hard since yesterday?
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
It won't be tomorrow until after I go to sleep. That's the rule. Midnight is just a guideline.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I find that chocolate covered peanut butter cookies are a great way to find out you have mice. That's how we figured out we had them when I was living in student housing at one of the national labs. The lab housing service used glue traps... poor cute little mousey.
I am more in favor of the live trap option. Then you take them hours from your house and release them into the wild.
Just 2 weeks ago I woke up to discover that my cat was about to bring a little present she'd caught onto my BED for me. ewwww At least the little present was entirely dead by that point but still in one piece.
I'd been gone for a week to that conference and left kitty w/ friends. While we were away apparently someone had moved in. Of course Lily, the cat, was insufferably pleased with herself for days. She just walked around smiling. It's so weird when a cat smiles.
Posts: 872 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Quidscribs, why on earth would you want to get rid of your gekos? They're great at keeping insects out of your house, and they don't spread disease or anything. Personally, I find them cute, and loved watching them run along the walls, but that's just me.
As for mice, I always use sticky traps, and then take them out someplace remote and free them (all you have to do to free them is pour vegetable oil over the trap. That seems like the most humane way to get rid of them that actually works. I've never managed to find a live trap that the mice weren't able to outwit.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
By the way, ElJay, you have good taste in chocolate (and so, apparently, does your mouse). I've been eyeing those 87% bars for some time, but I keep being seduced by the ones with the chilis in them. Good brand though.
What did you do with the chocolate bar? Since the mouse has already demonstrated his fine taste in chocolate, why not use it as your bait?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just don't think I could bear the whole "picking up a glue trap with a live mouse on it and transporting it far away" part of that process, although I agree it sounds much more humane.
I threw the original chocolate bar out. Wasn't thinking far enough ahead to save it for bait, I was still busy being upset that a) I had mice and b) they ate my chocolate.
The dagoba with chilis is excellent. I bought an assortment a couple of months ago that had one of every kind they made... lavendar & blueberries was particularly good, as was rosemary & mint, but the dried cherry & vanilla was probably my favorite.
So... I was drifting on the edge of sleep last night, when I heard a "Snap!" Of course, then, I'm wide awake. 10 minutes later, again almost asleep, and there's another one. Two of my three traps were filled this morning, and I removed and replaced them... I know intellectually that I need to do this, but I feel rotten about killing them. Not enough to try the other options, but I think it's good to know your own limitations. Mice can reproduce every 10 days, so if you have a breeding pair in your house you can quickly be overrun. Ick ick ick.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: Quidscribs, why on earth would you want to get rid of your gekos? They're great at keeping insects out of your house, and they don't spread disease or anything. Personally, I find them cute, and loved watching them run along the walls, but that's just me.
I reserve the right to refute the charges that geckos are a contributing member of society until such time as I have had the time to do the necessary investigative work to ascertain the truthfulness of that statement.
Geckos. Why would I want to get rid of them? Why, because:
*they get into everything. dishes. suitcases. beds. cupboards. storage compartment under the oven. they know no bounds *they leave behind their defececatory matter. white and black poop. everywhere they go. *I have to wash everything before I want to use it. I hate doing dishes twice, both before and after I use them. *they freak me out. every single time. and the last one. because *every time I see them, I scream like a little girl. Oh, this is the real last one. *And because my husband laughs at me every time I scream like a little girl when I see them.
quote: By the way, ElJay, you have good taste in chocolate (and so, apparently, does your mouse). I've been eyeing those 87% bars for some time, but I keep being seduced by the ones with the chilis in them. Good brand though.
Chocolate with chilis in them? I could cry.
Would someone be kind enough to send me a care package of these marvellous sounding chocolates? Please? Please? Pretty please with a gecko on top?
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
quidscribis, I will happily send you a care package of assorted frou-frou chocolates, for the pure and simple reason that I feel your pain... I, too, would scream if I had geckos running around my house, and everyone around would laugh at me. I hate it. But small things moving quickly where there are not supposed to be small things moving quickly makes me scream, period.
posted
Cute as they are, they'll chew on your wiring and quite possibly start a house fire. It's sad, but necessary to get rid of them one way or another.
Posts: 957 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Every fall we get mice in our basement, we put snap traps (or actually the Tick does) and once in a while we catch one. I won't go in the basement in the fall/winter because I don't want to see one. Last year we had someone put out poison and I was afraid of stepping on a dead mouse in the middle of the night so I turned on all the lights when I got up.
Posts: 153 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
ElJay, I've tried most of those, and I'll agree that the cherry-vanilla one is damned good. There's another one...raspberries and something else (is it rosehips?) that's amazing as well. Have you tried the lime and macadamia nut ones? They aren't bad either. The only one I didn't care for that I've tried so far has been the lavendar and blueberries one. It tasts like it was enfused with Essence of Ragweed to me.
FarmGirl, having a cat can definitely help, but not always. When I was a kid, we had a cat who was a fairly fearsome hunter. She generally kept the house clear of vermin, and brought in snakes, birds, rats, etc. on a fairly regular basis too. There one one mouse that we got that proved to be the Moriarty to her Holmes though. I'm not sure where the thing lived, but among its favorite places to hang out was in one of the burners of the stove. It would just sit there with its little head peeping out, and if it saw or smelled the cat coming, it could easily duck down to safety. Eventually, out of what I can only assume was frustration, the cat expressed her displeasure with this arrangement by peeing down the burner.
My god that was disgusting. I'm glad I was a kid at the time, and not the adult whose responsibility it was to clean that up.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
My dad has a story about the mice in his house when he took his first teaching job, out in the middle of nowhere in western Kansas. His apartment was completely overrun with mice--he said that he probably had over a hundred of them in the place. He set a bunch of traps, but they were pretty wiley mice, and didn't generally fall for them. One did though; he heard a snap from under his bed in the middle of the night. The next morning when he retrieved the trap, though, he discovered that the other mice had made a meal of the one he'd caught. Some of its well gnawed carcass was still there, but not a lot. How's that for foul?
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
It is indeed raspberry and rosehips, and it is indeed good. Now I have to go to work, and I am craving delicious chocolate and have none. But perhaps I have time to stop at the co-op on the way...
I cannot imagine having to try to clean cat pee out of my stove. Wow. Thank goodness.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Noemon -- well just the scent of a cat is sometimes enough to make a mouse not go to an area -- maybe your cat was trying to help you with that? I mean, afterwall, the mouse was already peeing in the burner, you can count on it.
Tick - I hope you have no other animals around (pets) if you are putting out mouse/rate poison, It can kill a cat or dog quite easily if they think it is tasty.
posted
I've never seen mice in our house, thank goodness, but I've seen the local cat playing with them outside. Mice don't really squick me out much, but I don't want them hanging around.
However, if I ever see a spider bigger than the palm of my hand crawling around, I'm going to want to move. I had to kill a black widow down by the door to our basement apartment, and that got me scared. We have lots of spiders, but they're usually of the non-threatening variety. We haven't had to deal with a lot of nasty vermin yet, and I've gotten complacent. I don't expect to see really big spiders anymore. Really big spiders really squick me out.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:I am craving delicious chocolate and have none.
I'm enjoying a Chocovic Guaranda bar right now. I'm usually more partial to their Ocumare bar, but somehow the Guaranda just seemed more appealing this week. Unfortunately, I'm near the end of my weekly chocolate allotment, and it's only Thursday.
I find Chocovic's descriptions of their chocolate bars to be pretty funny actually. They're very snooty, in a wine tasting sort of way. The Guaranda is described as follows: [QUOTE]Perfumed aroma with fruity, acid notes and floral tones of acacia honey, with milky and exotic wood nuances. Typical personality of cocoa bean: Smooth dark chocolate taste with notes of sweetened citric frutis and with floral tones of honeyed character.[QUOTE]
The thing is, I can taste what they mean by all of that. It's an incredibly pompous sounding description, I think, but it's also fairly accurate.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
No other animals, and strictly in the basement where Thomas never goes. I think it's all gone now anyway.
Posts: 5422 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Yeah Farmgirl, I expect that that was actually what she was trying to do. Or most likely, she was hoping to flush (so to speak) the mouse out of its safe hiding place and into a spot where it would be more vulnerable to her. I was just being funny when I said she did it out of frustration.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: quidscribis, I will happily send you a care package of assorted frou-frou chocolates, for the pure and simple reason that I feel your pain... I, too, would scream if I had geckos running around my house, and everyone around would laugh at me. I hate it. But small things moving quickly where there are not supposed to be small things moving quickly makes me scream, period.
E-mail me your addy at eljay @ hotmail.com [Smile]
Edit: Oh, but you can hold the gecko.
ElJay, you're my hero!
Honestly, I don't expect you to actually mail me a care package. On the other hand, if you insist, well, then who am I to stop you? So, on the off chance that you're going to insist, oh heck ya I'll email you my addy!
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
quidscribis, I am considering it my random act of kindness for the week. I can't think of anyone more deserving of kindness than someone cut off from good chocolate.
I bought 4 dagoba bars at my stop, but they didn't have the chili ones. I'll try the Wedge next. However, I am eating a Chocolove XOXOX Orange Peel in Dark Chocolate bar, which has freeze-dried orange peel. It's subtle, but quite good.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I've been having fun reading the descriptions of the cocoa beans, the various drying and fermentation processes and all that on the chocovic site. I had no idea it was such a complex undertaking.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Re: Glue traps vs. snap traps - if you're concerned about a vector borne illness from the rodents, it's a good idea to use a trap that doesn't kill the mouse/rat, because it's not really the rodent that spreads the illness, it's the fleas. If you kill the rodent, as soon as the body cools, the fleas will hop off, searching for another host, which will likely be you or your pet. When we had a bad outbreak of murine typhus a couple of years ago, we recommended catching the rodents live, then drowning them to kill the fleas at the same time. It seems heartless, but vector borne illnesses are nothing to mess with.
As for peanut butter as bait, I've always used that and it works great. (In fact, most glue traps are PB scented, I think.) I've also used small pieces of fresh apple. Many years ago, after watching too many cartoons, I suppose, I baited a trap with cheese. Of course, that was more than useless, because it attracted ants, and the mice stayed far away.
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
Don't kill the geckos!!!!!! They are harmless and they eat the roaches. They are your friends.
I love all the geckos in my home. I cheer them on as they race to catch bugs. I'm comforted by their little chirps at night, knowing they can eat roaches larger than themselves.
Geckos are GREAT!!!
Posts: 2069 | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
Oh man, I really thought you had misspelled mousse, but even that couldn't be right...
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Froot Loops, huh? If this doesn't work...![[Grumble]](graemlins/grumble.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I have ants right now, and I'm trying to picture what would happen if I had to trap mice with gooey yumminess on one hand and try to keep everything clean away from the ants with the other. I left an apple core in the trash can by my computer last night, and this morning my desk and keyboard was covered with ants.
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
I could cry.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
